1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to determining a unique object identifier for a desired object within a plurality of data processing systems and in particular to searching object indexes located in different data processing systems. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to searching object indexes located in different data processing systems to determine a unique object identifier associated with a desired object.
2. Description of the Related Art
When objects containing data are stored within a database in a data processing system, they are typically each assigned unique object identifiers which may be employed as a "key" to retrieve or manifest the desired object. The object identifier of a desired object may or may not be known, either within or outside the host data processing system, although attributes of the object may be known. Where the object contains information about an individual bank customer or health care organization patient or subscriber, for example, the object identifier for the object containing the individual's information may not be known although the individual's name, social security number, and other identifying information stored as a property on the object may be known.
Where the desired object may exist within any one of a plurality of data processing systems, each with its own index for objects within that data processing system, it can be difficult to determine the object identifier of the desired object where the request originates in one data processing system and all data processing systems are to be searched for the desired object. This may be particularly difficult where the data processing systems communicate over the Internet, where bandwidth limitations may impede transmission of complete object indexes among data processing systems to be searched.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide method of searching object indexes contained within a plurality of data processing systems with minimal communications between such data processing systems.